


Institutional Capture

by pozorvlak, twinkleflange



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Politics, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8109832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pozorvlak/pseuds/pozorvlak, https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinkleflange/pseuds/twinkleflange
Summary: Once two Avatars in succession had chosen a Team Avatar, the precedent had been set. And entrenched power structures stay entrenched by continually adapting to new political realities...





	

## Earth

The first to arrive was an Air Nomad child, half-starved after the thousand-mile flight from the Northern Air Temple to the training camp on Kyoshi Island.

"He says his name is Angtharkay, he's the best airbender in his class, and he wants to join Team Avatar."

"Team Avatar? There’s no such thing! Who came up with such a stupid name, anyway?"

"I believe the name was originally coined by Sokka the Wise, but my late husband was responsible for resurrecting it under Avatar Korra."

"I am sorry, Sifu Opal, I meant no disrespect. But the Avatar's training is proceeding well; I see no need for a group of children getting in the way."

"I'm not so sure, Jun-Fan. The Avatar is young, and alone; she could probably use some friends her own age."

"Nonsense! Her training is at far too critical a stage for any such distraction."

 

Nonetheless, candidates continued to arrive: airbenders and firebenders and waterbenders, non-bender martial artists, and a few earthbenders who figured they might as well try. The tent city outside the training camp soon grew larger than the camp itself, particularly when JLTV started reporting on the news. A pro-bending octagon was soon raised from the earth, and matches went on long into the night.

 

“Jun-Fan, we _have_ to do something about the children."

"What can we do? We've tried to disperse them a dozen times already."

"I think we should just select a Team Avatar. Like I said, Avatar Zhenyi could do with some friends, and making a selection would get rid of the others."

"Oh, very well. But how should we make the selection? I am _not_ letting JLTV make a reality show out of it, it's bad enough having them cover the Avatar's training."

"We could let the Avatar choose for herself...?"

"Hah, of course! How stupid of me". _Like I'd leave a decision that important in the hands of a sixteen-year-old. Look at what happened to members of the last two Team Avatars: two Chiefs of Police, a mover star and a Chief Justice - not to mention a Fire Lord! There's far too much at stake. No, I shall have to find some way of convincing the Avatar to make the choices I want her to make - and then the lucky candidates will **owe** me..._

* * *

## Fire

The igloo curved up around Morihei, the ice crystals in the walls reflecting the light from the whale-blubber lamp. The old woman sitting opposite him looked around, and then turned to him.

"Not bad for a first attempt, kid, but when you've finished your training you should visit my family at the South Pole. They'll teach you how to make an igloo properly."

"But Avatar Korra, it was your grandson who taught me to make this."

"Oh." Korra looked even older in the flickering light. "How quickly the old ways are forgotten." She sat lost in thought for a moment, then brightened up.

"Much though I appreciate the gesture of welcome, kid, I'd rather get out of here. How do you like seafood?"

Before he could respond, she snapped her fingers, and they were in an elegant Art Deco restaurant. Korra was no longer the kindly old Grandmother of the Republic from before, nor was she the muscular teenager from the history books who had defeated Unavaatu and Kuvira; instead, she was as she'd been at the height of her political powers, an elegant middle-aged woman whose perfectly-tailored clothes somehow suggested the traditional Water Tribe bearskins she'd been wearing a moment before.

"Where is this place?"

"The Mottled Lobster-crab, my favourite restaurant in Republic City. Well, technically we're in my memories of the Mottled Lobster-crab: I guess the real thing's probably been closed for decades, but if it's still open you should definitely pay it a visit next time you're in RC. Oh, some unsolicited Avatar advice: marry someone rich. Allows you to enjoy the finer things in life without violating that annoying 'no possessions' rule."

Morihei looked blank.

"Only seen me in the bearskins, huh? Yeah, that's part of the job. But remember, for most of my career I was a peacetime Avatar, which meant I needed to be close to the centres of power. I spent over forty years living in Republic City, moving among politicians and diplomats. And I was a peacetime Avatar because I worked _damn hard_ to keep the peace."

A waitress bustled up to their table.

"Avatar Korra! It's delightful to see you again. And you must be Avatar Morihei? What can I get for you?"

"The usual for me, please, and my young friend will have a plate of spider-langoustines. And some Zaofu white tea to drink."

The waitress hastened to the kitchens to get their orders.

"Now, young Morihei, what can I do for you?"

"It's about Team Avatar. They want me to pick one and it's all Lord This and Princess That and they're all saying what favours their families can do for me and how on earth do I choose?"

"Wait wait wait. Slow down. They're saying you _have_ to pick a Team Avatar? And the carefully-vetted candidates are all well-connected aristocrats?"

"Yes. Half of them have the surname Beifong."

"Huh. My Team Avatar was two guys I met at the gym and a girl who ran one of them over on her scooter. More advice, by the way: try not to fall in love with more than one of them at a time. Gets messy. Anyway, sounds like that's not your problem. So here's some advice that might actually help: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."

* * *

## Air

"But Mira, what can we do to help you? We're not great benders or warriors. I'm a technician, these two are cooks, and he's a bookworm."

"Maybe, but you're my friends, and you're the only people I can trust in this place."

Avatar Mira knew that Sanfeng was right; only Mira herself had any combat training (and she was starting to suspect that her curriculum had been carefully designed so she wouldn't be too much of a threat). The Team Avatar that had been chosen for her had all been intensively trained from birth, but who knew what favours they owed to the White Lotus? Some of them were third-generation TA. No, she had to assume that Team Avatar was part of Gyalzen's conspiracy.

"Listen, I don't know what Gyalzen's planning, but it's big, and it's definitely not on the level, and I can't investigate while I'm being watched constantly. You have no idea how hard it was to get a few minutes alone with you here."

“Have you tried asking your Avatar forebears for advice?” asked Weiping.

“They weren't much help. Morihei just wanted to talk about igloos, Zhenyi didn’t have any ideas, and Korra said this was ‘more of an Aang problem’. But I can't talk to Aang: the connection is broken past Korra.”

"I wrote my dissertation on Avatar Aang’s early history and the end of the Hundred Years War - maybe I can substitute,” said Weiping. “When Aang quarrelled with his teachers, he escaped from the Northern Air Temple on his sky bison.”

“That… could work. It would be harder to investigate from the outside, but I'd have freedom of movement.”

"The kitchens are busy preparing food for your Avatar Journey; Keinosuke and I could steal some,” offered Pitseolak the diminutive waterbender, sounding more excited than scared.

"Good idea, Pitseolak. But how can I get out of the compound? Aang lived in the days before air-traffic control. Even if I could sneak a ten-ton sky bison out of the stables, they'd be tracking me all the way.”

“I can get into the room where they keep the ATC systems,” said Sanfeng, “but I don't have access to the software. We could trash them physically, but they'd know something was up.”

“Sanfeng,” began Weiping cautiously, “don't take this the wrong way, but do you have any Sandbender ancestry?”

“My grandma was a Sandbender,” replied Sanfeng, with a guarded weariness.

“Did she teach you?”

“A little.”

“Here's my idea: the silicon used in microchips is basically highly-refined sand. Do you think you could sandbend in a small enough flaw to cause glitches, but not to wreck the system outright? Then when they take it down to investigate, Mira can make her escape.”

“I don't know: all that circuitry is on the nanovarrick scale. But I can try.”

“Excellent. Now, I have an idea about busting Pasang out of the stables…”

 

“Well, I don’t know if that would have been my preferred solution to the problem, but your idea got the job done,” said Mira. The exhausted teenagers slumped against the panting and lathered Pasang — all but one. A slight frown showed that Weiping, star of BSSU’s military strategy department and sole non-bender intern at the Whale Tail Island Compound, was still working the problem.

"There's one more problem, Mira. You have a tracking chip implanted in your neck. We'll need to disable it before you make your escape."

"I can cut it out," offered Keinosuke. “Then Pitseolak can heal you up. She does all the first aid in the kitchens.”

"No offence, Keino, but you're a cook, not a surgeon."

"You know those fugu-mamba rolls you like so much?"

"...I withdraw my objection."

A few minutes later, the chip lay in Keinosuke’s hand. Mira shifted her collar up to conceal the freshly-scabbed incision.

"Thank you so much, everyone. Remember, don't say anything about where I've gone when they question you."

"They won't be able to question us,” replied Pitseolak, “because we're coming with you! Now we just need a name: how about the Mira Images?"

**Author's Note:**

> This story started as [a series of tweets](https://twitter.com/pozorvlak/status/622014925012135936), but has grown somewhat in the telling. Those tweets were in turn inspired loosely by [C. Northcote Parkinson's theory of comitology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law#Related_efficiency). Huge thanks to [twinkleflange](http://archiveofourown.org/users/twinkleflange) for beta-reading and many helpful suggestions; Avatar Mira’s section in particular is effectively joint work. Thanks also to cub for beta-reading.
> 
> I’ve tried to name original characters after notable people from real-world cultures on which the nations of Avatar are based:
> 
>   * [Angtharkay](http://www.markhorrell.com/blog/2014/10-great-sherpa-mountaineers/) \- Sherpa mountaineer. _Sirdar_ (lead climbing Sherpa) on the first expedition to reach the summit of an 8000m peak.
>   * [Wang Zhenyi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Zhenyi_\(astronomer\)) \- 18th century Chinese astronomer, mathematician and poet.
>   * [Lee Jun-Fan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee) \- Hong Kong/American martial artist, actor, filmmaker, and founder of Jeet Kune Do.
>   * [Ueshiba Morihei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morihei_Ueshiba) \- Japanese martial artist and founder of Aikido.
>   * [Mira Rai](http://www.miraraifilm.com/) \- Nepali mountain runner and former Maoist guerilla.
>   * [Zhang Sanfeng](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Sanfeng) \- legendary Taoist scholar, credited with founding taijiquan.
>   * [Gyalzen Norbu Sherpa](http://www.markhorrell.com/blog/2014/10-great-sherpa-mountaineers/) \- the first mountaineer in history to climb two 8000m peaks.
>   * [Nie Weiping](http://senseis.xmp.net/?NieWeiping) \- Chinese professional Go player.
>   * [Pitseolak Ashoona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitseolak_Ashoona), Inuit Canadian artist, known for the joyfulness that characterized her work.
>   * [Enoeda Keinosuke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keinosuke_Enoeda) \- Japanese martial artist and former Chief Instructor of the Karate Union of Great Britain.
>   * [Pasang Dawa Lama](http://www.markhorrell.com/blog/2013/sherpa-hospitality-as-a-cure-for-frostbite/) \- Sherpa mountaineer. The driving force behind the first ascent of Cho Oyu (8201m).
> 



End file.
